May 3, 2014

New record!

BWSC competion was held yesterday, and my brother and I managed to win again, with a new record! The bar was high, and Čorko&Mucko team started the day with a time of 15:55. We answered back with 15:16, giving everything we had and putting a great closure to the last 3 months of hard preparations!

We want to thank out sponsor Bim Sport d.o.o. for the support – excellent Petzl gear helped us win.

Here are some short results and photos, with more coming soon in the following days!
1. Jurica and Perica Levatić 15:16
2. Igor Čorko and Emil Mucko 15:55
3. Ivan Pevec and Siniša Škalec 22:07
4. Luka Mudronja and Luka Trumbić 39:29

[UPDATE] You can read, watch and see more about our win in the following links:
Report – Planet Mountain (English)
Report – 8a.nu (English)
Report – eVaraždin (Croatian)
Video – VTV (Croatian)
Photo Gallery

Jurica racing for the top

Pulling the rope at anchor 2 during the competition

Spectators watching the competition

Route notes from the training book

Perica following in third pitch – our time at anchor 3 was 8:59 – in training we never managed to go below 9:40!

Victory celebration

April 21, 2014

Speed is coming

Our final preparations for the competition have begun – we arrived in Paklenica 3 days ago, and we stay here until the competition day (3rd of May). The “work” parts of training are done, cardio levels are high and now there is only one (most important) thing remaining – pure speed.

Jurica focused in third pitch, with Perica handling the gear on second anchor.

For the next two weeks the main accent of training is on quality speed attempts of the route. We have worked out all the moves and sequences, achieved all individual pitch times as planned, perfected gear management – what’s left now is to put all the training elements into one big picture – or better said raw speed.

New rope, new speed

Our sponsor BIM Sport provided us with a new Petzl 9.2 mm Volta rope. Petzl is already known as the leading gear manufacturer, and they have recently started making climbing ropes. We won’t be surprised if Petzl also becomes a leading rope manufacturer, as we can both say this is the best rope we ever climbed with.

Best rope ever -Petzl Volta 9.2mm

Petzl Volta is ultra-light and super smooth rope – we were both surprised how easy is the handling. In speed climbing, belaying can also be very tiring, as the second climber is at some points so fast you barely manage to take in all the rope – so easier rope handling and less friction can save you some valuable energy for later pitches of the route.

Fast anchor clipping session

So far our plans were (again) disturbed by the rain. Waiting for the route to dry in the nearby cave, we had a fun practice session with Pevec and Škalec team. We used velcro, tape, pants and hope to clip the anchor as fast as possible. You can see the rather funny results of the session below:

Stay tuned for more this week!

April 9, 2014

Work days, speed days

This weekend was our 5th BWSC specific trip to Paklenica this year, where the only focus is to train for the competition, and it was far from ideal conditions yet again. We arrived late Friday night, and as usual jumped straight out of the car for an easy night jog from the apartment to the National park parking and back (around 5 km).

Saturday started sunny, but quickly became a battle with rain. The rain first caught us in warm up, so we hided in a nearby overhang with sport-climbing routes. Jurica took the window of opportunity for some normal climbing, and sent his project from last summer – Los compadres de puta madre (8a/a+) while it was still dry.

The rain stopped, and after only 45 minutes our route was completely dry. We quickly geared up and went to training. Saturday was the last planned “work” day in the route – all the rest of days in the route were planned to be “speed” days.

Racking up

Work day means you go through the route and practice the moves, sections or pitches multiple times. In a typical work day, you would do every pitch 2-4 times, switching between improving your sequence with new hand-feet combinations, memorizing and repeating old moves, and occasionally testing your single pitch speed with a timed push.

In a speed day, the task is a lot simpler, but also harder. You rack up, press start on the stopwatch, make a run for it and press stop when the second climber touches the 5th anchor. We noticed that it takes us more time to rack up than to get on top of route!

The plan was to finalize and polish all the small details we had left in the route on Saturday, before making speed attempts on Sunday. We were making great progress, when on 3rd anchor it started to rain for real. In less than a minute, we were completely wet – Jurica was even having a small waterfall drop exactly on him while he was belaying me, as I was slowly climbing a normally very easy pitch 4 through the rain, with the goal to reach the rappel line.

Sunday was thankfully sunny, so we finished our work left in pitches 4 and 5 in the morning, and did one speed go in the evening. We decided not to reveal our time from this weekend, but don’t worry – we are fast!

Some image details:

Racking up

Time, weight, heartbeats – this year we mesure everything!

We were drying all the gear and my secret route notes, where I noted all improvements I wanted to do this weekend

Hey, don’t sneak-peak!

Jurica is an excellent cook – and probaby more aware about good sport nutrition than some pro athletes

Jurica did not fall drunk in the river – he is healing an inflamed elbow in the cold water!

March 11, 2014

The need for the speed …

We are two brothers from Varaždin, Croatia, we have been climbing for 10 years and this is our new blog – which aims to cover our preparation for the BWSC 2014 competition to be held on 3rd of May, 2014 in Paklenica, and later our small climbing journeys.

To get more information about two of us, visit About page!

Thank you Bim sport and Petzl!

Sponsors

We are grateful to have a sponsor for this year’s competition – Croatian Petzl distributor Bim Sport will support our new chase for the record with equipment and clothing. Thank you Bim Sport and Petzl!

Big Wall Speed Climbing Paklenica 2014

Big Wall Speed Climbing Paklenica is a unique competition, where the goal is simple – climb a 160m route BWSC (6c+) as fast as possible, under specific set of rules (for instance, simul climbing is forbidden and you have to clip all the quickdraws). The competition is being held each year on the 1st of May since 2000, and we are competing since 2007.

After a series of second places, in the year 2012 we decided to take this competition a bit more seriously, and win it. With two months of very specific training and preparation under the belt we succeeded in setting the new speed record with the time of 20 minutes and 49 seconds (beating the previous record by more than half a minute). The record still stands, but is bound to be beaten this year.

Why is 2014 so interesting?

During the competition.

Except for the fact that BWSC in Paklenica is the biggest climbing festival organised in Croatia and brings together hundreds of climbers each year, this time it is specially interesting because the previous record holder and one of the best climbers in Croatia, Igor Čorko, is coming back to try to claim the record again. He is partnering with Emil Mucko, who is a super naturally gifted individual, also holding multiple BWSC wins.

Interestingly, two of them and two of us are all from the same climbing gym PK Vertikal in Varaždin. So, it is a combination of friendships and rivalry – our goal from the beginning was to break our own record again, and added rivalry makes it all a little bit more intense.

Training

Training for the competition is already long underway – it includes (a lot of) pull-ups, interval running, gym exercises, special endurance climbing and of course – practice in the route itself, because it is the same route each year.

For more details on our preparation, wait for our next post!